Jessica VerSteeg's Disappearing Act: The $12M Paragon Coin Fraud That Left Investors Searching

When Jessica VerSteeg and her Russian entrepreneur husband Egor Lavrov vanished without a trace in 2019, they left behind more than just disappointed colleagues. They abandoned thousands of cryptocurrency investors holding worthless tokens from their $12 million Paragon Coin ICO campaign—and a sprawling legal mess that prosecutors still can’t untangle. As of 2026, the class-action lawsuit designed to recover investor losses remains stalled, hampered by a fundamental problem: nobody can find the defendants.

The Vanishing Act: When a Beauty Queen Entrepreneur Disappeared

Jessica VerSteeg wasn’t your typical startup founder. The former Iowa beauty queen turned reality TV personality seemed like an unlikely candidate to launch a blockchain cannabis venture. Yet in 2017, she and Lavrov assembled a team of technologists at a rented hacker house in California with an ambitious pitch: revolutionize the marijuana supply chain through cryptocurrency.

By early 2019, VerSteeg had become the face of Paragon Coin—appearing in joint media appearances, handling press outreach, and even recruiting celebrity endorsements from hip-hop artist Jayceon Terrell Taylor, known as The Game. Forbes dubbed the project “the future of cannabis finance.” The ICO generated nearly $12 million in digital assets, making it one of the era’s notable token sales.

Then she disappeared. Following a 2018 SEC enforcement action that fined the founders, VerSteeg and Lavrov grew increasingly unreachable. By mid-2019, their social media accounts went dormant. The last recorded contact came from Kiev, Ukraine—a cryptic Instagram post suggesting they had traveled to meet developers. After that: silence.

From ICO Boom to Regulatory Bust: Paragon’s Toxic Trajectory

The Paragon story reflects the broader collapse of the 2017 initial coin offering craze. What began as a technology-fueled fundraising phenomenon rapidly devolved into unregulated securities fraud. The SEC filed enforcement action against Paragon in 2018, forcing the team to pay penalties for conducting an illegal securities offering.

Paragon’s core offering was straightforward: ParagonCoin (ticker PRG) served as the transactional layer, while ParagonChain purported to digitize marijuana supply logistics. VerSteeg announced plans for Paragon Space, Los Angeles’ first cannabis co-working facility. The venture promised transparency, efficiency, and blockchain-powered compliance—everything cannabis entrepreneurs supposedly needed.

But the SEC’s investigation revealed the uglier truth: the token sale was never compliant with securities regulations. The marketing campaign, which consumed significant resources through Facebook and Google advertising, had targeted cryptocurrency enthusiasts rather than conducting proper investor disclosures. The “technology team” brought into the hacker house viewed themselves as contractors, not founders. Most remained skeptical of the project from the start.

Eugene Bogorad, who handled initial marketing strategy alongside VerSteeg, later reflected on the venture’s collapse: “Paragon became toxic. I never intended to be part of a founding team—Egor invited a few of us to help launch his company for summer 2017. Once the ICO started and the legal pressure mounted, it all fell apart.”

The Legal Standoff: A Class-Action Lawsuit with No Defendants to Find

The class-action lawsuit Davy v. Paragon Coin, Inc. represents an unprecedented legal challenge: hundreds of defrauded investors seeking recovery from defendants who have effectively disappeared from jurisdiction. The Northern District of California certified token buyers as a proper class in 2021, authorizing collective litigation for damages.

But prosecution faces a critical obstacle. The defendants’ original legal representation withdrew from the case, citing inability to maintain contact with their clients. Attorney Donald Enright, representing the plaintiff class, confirmed that defendants “defaulted by failing to appear in court and respond to claims.” The previous defense counsel, attorney Howard Schiffman, stated he hasn’t communicated with VerSteeg, Lavrov, or other defendants “in years.”

Without defendant participation or legal representation, courts struggle to proceed. While Enright has indicated plans to seek default judgment on behalf of the entire class—potentially awarding the full $12 million in damages—enforcement remains theoretical. How does a court collect judgment from people who have essentially vanished?

The situation represents precisely what not to do during a regulatory enforcement action: flee jurisdiction. Instead of cooperating with SEC investigators or negotiating settlements like other token project operators, VerSteeg and Lavrov simply left.

The Missing Entrepreneur Mystery: Why Jessica VerSteeg Disappeared

Jessica VerSteeg missing and presumed abroad becomes the central puzzle of this fraud case. Industry insiders offer competing theories. Bogorad suggested the couple “disappeared together,” deliberately exiting the jurisdiction to escape legal consequences. An anonymous Paragon contributor speculated they feared additional SEC civil or criminal charges beyond the 2018 settlement terms.

Other team members reported that VerSteeg, despite heavy public promotion throughout 2018, became increasingly withdrawn as legal pressure intensified. By late 2018, she rarely responded to messages from collaborators. The couple’s pivot to Ukraine—where neither maintained obvious business interests—suggests deliberate geographic retreat rather than relocation for business reasons.

“Last we heard from them they were visiting the development team near Kiev. After that, nothing. Complete radio silence,” Bogorad recalled. The timing aligns suspiciously with media reports of missed deadline payments on SEC-mandated fines, suggesting financial resources may have constrained their ability to fund legal defense.

Why Investors Can’t Get Their Money Back

The $12 million invested in Paragon Coin remains trapped, with no clear recovery mechanism. Even if courts award default judgment, collecting damages requires locating and seizing assets—particularly challenging when defendants maintain no U.S. bank accounts, property, or registered businesses.

Some early contributors expressed limited concern about losses, betting that SEC fines represented the full extent of legal exposure. Others became resigned to treating their investments as complete losses—cryptocurrency industry casualties of regulatory learning curves.

The remaining Paragon technology team, scattered across Russian-speaking Europe and the United States, largely departed the project once ICO funding concluded. Free TON, a blockchain project that Bogorad later joined, became his focus—though he emphasized maintaining no formal founding role in that venture.

The Broader Lesson: When ICO Entrepreneurs Disappear

Jessica VerSteeg missing remains one of cryptocurrency’s most visible cases of a high-profile entrepreneur effectively vanishing to escape legal consequences. Her disappearance underscores regulatory risks that 2017’s ICO enthusiasts dramatically underestimated.

The Paragon saga arrived alongside an explosion of token sales—hundreds launching simultaneously with minimal compliance infrastructure. The SEC’s subsequent enforcement action against Paragon signaled the end of that era’s permissive regulatory environment. But that legal victory brought no solace to investors, who discovered that a favorable court judgment against missing defendants held little practical value.

As of 2026, the Paragon case remains an unresolved symbol of the ICO bubble’s devastation: impressive promises, ambitious technology, celebrity endorsements, and ultimately, investors left holding worthless tokens while project founders operated with apparent impunity from foreign jurisdictions.